Wilde's portrayal of the search for internal youth, its wild joys and wilder sins–and its price Dorian Gray has had his portrait painted. It is a perfect likeness of the quite extraordinarily beautiful young man, and prompts him to make a mad wish for eternal youth. In the years to come, he devotes his public life to art and aestheticism–and his private one to decadence and debauchery. And while his gilded youth remains intact, the picture of Dorian Gray, long banished to the attic, mirrors the hideous corruption of hi soul. His wish has come true–but it has its consequences. The most comprehensive paperback edition available, with introduction, notes, selected criticism and chronology of Wilde's life and times.